Friends For Life
by Milo Pressman
Summary: During the summer of their junior year in high school Jack and his best friend Eddie have a life-altering adventure during one long summer night.
1. Default Chapter

FRIENDS FOR LIFE

Prologue

The hot sun beat down on the courtyard but underneath the colonnade it was shady and much cooler. A light breeze made the hanging baskets of purple and pink fuchsias sway gently. The thick adobe walls blocked out the noise from the parking lot and from the busy, nearby streets, so the splash of water in the fountain could be heard clearly. A variety of small birds pecked for grubs and insects in the dirt, the bees droned on and he was glad he'd arrived first. The peace of this place was always a tonic for him. Even though he lived here, he rarely had the opportunity to just sit and do the dusty equivalent of watching the grass grow. There wasn't one blade of grass in the courtyard. Just packed, yellow, sandy dust. He sat down on one of the benches to wait.

When he'd picked up the phone a few days earlier he wasn't expecting to hear Jack's voice on the other end of the line. They hadn't spoken for almost a year, since after Jack had gotten out of the hospital the last time. At least, he thought it was the last time. But as always happened between them when Jack did one of these surprise re-surfacings it was as if they'd shot pool together only the other day. There was a little catching up on the few mutual friends from the old days that either of them still kept in touch with, a truncated update on Kim, and then Jack got to the point of the call.

"I know this isn't much notice but I'd like to see you. Can you give me an hour or so one afternoon this week?"

He'd quickly checked his calendar. He was booked solid, and scheduled to be out of town from Thursday on. But with a little jiggling...

"How about Wednesday at 1:00?" he said.

He saw him enter the courtyard from the opposite side. He must have walked all the way around to avoid setting even one toe inside. Jack was still as trim and as light on his feet as he was twenty year ago. Ed Vallone thought ruefully about the 15 extra pounds he was carrying, the broken resolutions to run every other day. He knew that if Jack didn't get his five daily miles in there was some form of national emergency underway, like the country was about to be invaded by Martians.

Except for the hair, which was thinner and showed some gray around the temples, (and the lines in his face, of course), Jack looked like he'd looked in high school when he was running cross country and playing Babe Ruth baseball in the fall. In the spring he was the first string shortstop on the varsity, even though he was just a sophomore. Well, he had made the varsity that year too, he reminded himself. He was the catcher. They loved to pick men off who were trying to steal second. No one had done it to them since they played in Majors in Little League. It was their specialty.

Sophomore year had been a good year. The year before things began to change. He rose to greet him. Their embrace was strong, solid, and genuine.

"Thanks for shifting your schedule around on such short notice" Jack began, finally removing his sunglasses.

"Well, you never have as much flexibility as I do. And I knew if you called it must be important."

Jack turned for a moment and looked out at the courtyard. "It must be 15 degrees cooler under here than it is out in the parking lot. It's always so peaceful. It makes it seem like its a hundred years ago."

He poured himself a glass of iced tea from the nearby pitcher and joined Ed on the bench that was set up against the building's solid, smooth wall. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, listening to the fountain and enjoying the quiet. Ed eyed him closely.

"What have you been up to?"

"I haven't really been out in the field since the last time we talked. Well, a few small things, but nothing worth mentioning, really."

So "the last time" was the one Ed knew about. The one where Kim had called him in the middle of the night because it was doubtful Jack would make it to the morning. It had been chilly for that time of year, which had helped since they hadn't been able to find him for two or three hours. The cold had lowered his heart rate, slowed his metabolism, slowed the bleeding. They'd still had to pump 10 pints of blood into him.

"But you're going out now, aren't you."

"Yes" Jack smiled, turning to look at him. "That's always when I come to bother you, isn't it."

"Tell me, are you still with Kate?" he asked, with the comfortable directness of an old friendship.

Ed had met her at the hospital. A beautiful, gracious and surprisingly strong woman who was obviously in love with Jack. They'd gotten to know each other waiting in the hospital corridor, or in the lounge, with Kim.

The smile faded.

"Good question. I moved out a month ago. We just weren't headed in the same direction. But we're still seeing each other, in fits and starts. I just left her, actually. She said to say hello." He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I'm going to be away for a while, "Jack continued. "So I think its better this way. It lets her get on with her life. Besides, I couldn't promise...there are just no guarantees in this business. So its time to end it."

Eddie gave him a look.

"What happened?"

From anyone else it would have been considered prying.

"It's this damned job. Or rather, it's me and this damned job." He walked restlessly over to the colonnade, and sat down on the ledge facing Ed.

"She wanted me to get a different job, at least to quit field work. That last time really shook her up. It worries her. She knows there's a lot to be worried about, more than Teri ever did.

"She knows because she's seen what I do. It wasn't just that her sister was in the middle of it. Kate had to do things, she saw things that she should have never had to see or do. She saw me interrogate her own sister. Not to mention she saw me beat the crap out of somebody else. She thought for a while there that I'd ordered...well, let's just say it was something I hope I never have to really do.

"But, the thing is, she knows I'd do it. She knows I'd do it if I had to. Sometimes I think that's what really scares her. The thought of what I'd be able to do if something had to be done. She doesn't want me to have to do those things, you see. Because there are consequences. Even if it's the right choice, even if it's the only way, there are, still, consequences. None of its free."

Jack paused for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Then he seemed to come to a conclusion about something, because he went on again.

"She saw all of that, and, still, she wanted to be with me." He spoke as if the entire situation continued to baffle him. "But I think she'd just had enough. There were too many nights where she had no idea where I was or what I was doing or if I'd be home by Thanksgiving or by Christmas. She didn't want to face another frantic trip to the hospital at two am."

"So was this split her idea, or yours?"

He sighed. There was no keeping things back, once he started talking to Eddie. That was the danger of these meetings. Eddie got down to the heart of things pretty quickly.

"Well, more me than her." Another pause. Jack was having a hard time, a very hard time, with the next part.

"She wanted to start a family," he said finally. "To have a child. And I just can't go there. So my things are all sitting in boxes in Kim's basement. I moved out" he repeated, "and, at the same time, I've been spending every spare moment I've got left, before I go, with her." He smiled weakly. "It doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"Well, what she's saying makes sense to me, at least".

"Thanks a lot."

"But I can also understand if you don' t want to take on the responsibility of having young children all over again. It strikes me as if it's all just too bad. Because I know how much you cared for her. And how difficult it was for you to let yourself do that again."

Jack looked away from him.

"It's worse than that, Eddie. I love her. The work, I think in the end, she would have made peace with that. She would have at least put up with it for however much longer I'm in shape to do it.

"It's the other thing," he continued, "...I couldn't even meet her half way on that. It was the one thing, the only thing, she ever really asked me to do. And I told her no. I said no to something as wonderful as a child.

"I'm the coward here. Not Kate."

He stood up and moved back over to the bench.

"So it's a good thing if I get out of the picture now" he concluded briskly. "Because, that way, she has a chance to find somebody else."

Eddie wondered if Kate would see things in quite the same light.

"Maybe the chief attraction of having a child" he suggested quietly "was that it would have been yours." When Jack didn't respond, he continued "I mean, given the wonders of modern science, there are other alternatives, if the point is to have a child, period."

"Well, whatever" Jack said, shutting the conversation down and completely missing the point. "It's not going to happen now. I leave in a day or so. And I'll be gone for almost a year, if not longer. So it's over."

How could someone be so clever, so perceptive and inventive, Ed wondered, when he needed to get out of an impossibly tight spot and. at the same time, be stunningly tone deaf when it came to making sense of his own life?

Ed felt absolutely certain, almost as if she'd told him this herself, that Kate wanted Jack's child, not because she thought they would be able to raise it together. But because she wanted to have something of Jack left to love when he was gone; when they finally caught up with him, and killed him. Now, if _he_ knew that, on the basis of a total of about ten hours of conversation, and a few cook outs around the pool, how could _Jack_ not know it about a woman he'd lived with for over two years?

Here was another example, he mused, of what he'd come to call, to himself, "the hole in Jack's brain." There wasn't a problem with the man's heart. There was a great capacity to love there, a fierce determination to take care of others, even if they were people he didn't know and would never meet. He had a deep respect for simple, ordinary people. He understood what they had to put up with to make sure there was food on the table. He'd seen Jack in absolute agony and he'd seen his face light up with a pure, almost ecstatic happiness. The capacity to feel everything was there.

But when it came to understanding how others felt about him, and why they felt that way, Jack was at a loss. He was especially mystified if they liked him. He still didn't understand why Kate loved him and he probably never understood why Teri loved him, either. He knew they did but, on the inside, he couldn't really comprehend why anyone would feel that way.

Jack was like the conductor who knew, instinctively, how each instrument in the orchestra needed to be played if the symphony was going to sound right. But ask him how he knew that, and he couldn't understand why you needed to ask the question. Wasn't it obvious? He'd ask, with his head tilted to one side like he couldn't quite believe that you were raising the question honestly, that you weren't just pulling his leg. Ask him why the flute player detested him and he could give you five pretty good reasons why that was so, if he thought about it for half an hour. But point out that the cellist would willingly die for him, and ask him why, and he'd shrug his shoulders and give you a perplexed look that said, "I don't know. You tell me". And it wasn't false modesty. He really didn't know.

It was a phenomenon that reminded Ed, so clearly it was as if it had happened yesterday, of the night of their great adventure. The night when he'd begun to see how many layers there were to Jack, how he was constantly working on three or four different things at the same time, busy keeping straight who needed to know what about each one of the several irons he had heating up in the fire. The night when he'd finally comprehended that Jack was both "seventeen going on thirty" and struggling to make it to seventeen and a half.


	2. CHAPTER ONE Come For Dinner

CHAPTER ONE: COME FOR DINNER

Ed Vallone wasn't looking forward to the sudden re-appearance of his former best friend on the opposite side of the dining room table. Since second grade he and Jack Bauer had been inseparable. They'd done everything together, from playing with Transformers and Batman's Cave, to t-ball and up through all the various levels of Little League, with time out for backyard campouts and, one memorable summer, when they'd learned to surf.

Despite that, about eight or nine months ago Jack had dropped out of his life without one word of explanation. They would be seniors in the fall, and Ed was pre-occupied with guilty thoughts about what he hadn't done about college, and hanging out with his friends, and his plans for improving the school newspaper, thereby winning the Pulitzer Prize. But by the end of the academic year Jack was barely showing up for school three days a week. He'd dropped the friends they'd shared about the same time, just as abruptly as he'd dropped Ed. He'd broken up with his girlfriend, after chasing after her for the preceding four years. Ed felt that he didn't know who Jack Bauer was anymore. Nor was he that interested in finding out who he'd turned in to.

He quickly gathered, however, that either his own parents hadn't seen fit to tell him what was going on, or he hadn't been paying attention. Apparently what prompted this particular dinner invitation was the fact that Jack's mother was back in the hospital, and had been for two weeks. He'd been on his own since she'd gone in. Just as he'd been on his own for most of the last year when, in between chemo and radiation treatments, Mrs. Bauer always seemed to be going into the hospital for an operation, or because her "count" was too high, or too low. Ed's mother had been trying to get Jack to agree to come over since the day his mother had gone in this last time, and Jack had finally relented. Mrs. Vallone had made it clear that she was not going to leave him alone until he'd shown up at least once. Or maybe Jack had run out of excuses for not coming over.

What struck Ed most during that meal was the way his own father spoke to Jack. When he arrived they actually shook hands, like they'd just been introduced five minutes earlier. During the meal Ed noticed that Jack visibly alerted when Paul Vallone asked him a question, or sent a comment in his direction. There was an understanding, a communication there, which was somehow different from the way his father spoke to Ed. Something more formal but also more equal.

It made Ed vaguely jealous, that Jack was talking to his father in a way he couldn't. Like there was something going on between the three of them...Ed's mother, Ed's father, and Jack...that Eddie wasn't privy to. It was like he and his thirteen-year old brother Donnie were visitors at the adult table, allowed there on probation pending maintenance of good behavior. Whereas Jack, even though he was six months younger than Ed, was sitting at the table where he now belonged.

It was awkward between them during dinner but didn't stop his mother from shooing them up to Ed's room afterwards, just as she'd done hundreds of times before. He leaned uneasily on the doorframe as Jack idly pulled on Eddie's mitt and used it to catch the hardball he tossed back and forth to himself.

"How'd the team do this year?" Jack asked, and immediately regretted it, wincing inwardly. It was the type of question an uncle who barely knew you would ask if he were visiting from out of town.

"What do you care?" Eddie replied immediately, seeing through the falseness of Jack's feigned interest, just as Jack knew he would. "The season ended three months ago, in case you hadn't noticed." Ed sat down on one of the twin beds. When he'd slept over, Jack had always had the other one.

"We lost in the first game of sectionals," he continued. "Our fielding was a disgrace. They stole second on us three times. Hager couldn't catch a ball if his life depended on it." Ed's whole body said 'You weren't there, Jack. We lost because you weren't there.'

"You try working after school every day, and hold down another job on the weekends, and see how much time and energy you've got left," Jack shot back.

"After school? When was the last time you actually showed up for a full week? That you passed anything this year was a gift and you know it as well as I do. Besides," he went on angrily, "you had more than enough time, and energy, to meet up with your friends Vinnie and Pittz.

"Do you know what they do with the weed you sell them, Jack? They turn around and sell it to the seventh graders who hang out around the basketball courts in back of the middle school. Those kids are younger than Donnie, Jack."

A pained expression crossed Jack's face but he shrugged it away like what Ed had said to him didn't matter. Ed was surprised at how sad he felt when he realized Jack hadn't done anything to deny the accusation.

"You used to care about school, Jack. You used to care about playing baseball, and cross-country, and you would have kicked the butt of anybody you caught doing what you're doing now. What the hell happened?"

You used to care about me, Eddie wanted to yell at him. But he had too much pride to say it.

Jack gave him a bitter, disgusted look.

"You really have to ask me that question? Where the hell have you been?

"Here's a news flash, Eddie. This may be something you've never thought about. But, guess what? Things actually cost money. Everything costs money. And here's another tidbit. Somebody has to work if there's going to be any money.

"I do what I have to do. Every day, I go out, and I do what I have to do. Don't ask me to apologize to you because I haven't got any interest in playing high school any more. I couldn't care less about some team, or the theme for this year's prom, or who got the lead in the spring musical, or what's going to be on the fucking geometry quiz. I have other things I have to do, that have to be taken care of.

"I have to do it because there's nobody else in this goddamned world who will."

"If you've had so much to deal with, why didn't you at least come and tell me that?" Eddie countered. "Friends are supposed to talk to each other, Jack. You check out, people miss you. For a while they wonder what they did to tick you off. They don't know what to think. Then they move on, and they forget about you. I can barely figure out my own life. How the hell am I supposed to just know what's going on in yours?"

"Ok, sport, try this one on for size. Here's what's happening in my life." Jack said, smiling at him like this was actually fun.

"In less than two weeks, I'm going to need a couple thousand to get her buried. That's another thing you have to pay for, by the way. The life insurance is already spent. The doctors and the hospital will scarf that up. I have no idea where that money's going to come from. I can't work anymore hours, because there aren't any more hours.

"So the fair haired boys and girls of Santa Monica better get out their roach clips, and the money Daddy forks over every Friday night, and get ready to light up. Because I need the money.

"And you want me to feel sorry because I didn't play baseball this year? Don't make me laugh."

They glared at each other.

"No, I just wish you had remembered that we were supposed to be friends. And that I would have done anything to help you out," Ed said quietly.

Jack put the ball in the mitt and placed it back on Eddie's desk.

"Once I get past this..." Jack stopped for a moment. Then he continued. "Maybe I can cut back on work this fall. I've got to get my grades up."

Eddie was startled. He sounded deflated and bone tired, completely different from the way he'd sounded just moments before. Like he couldn't jump all over Eddie any more because he'd just totally run out of steam.

"You still thinking about college?" Ed asked him, surprised.

"I'll probably go to UCLA" Jack said calmly. Now he was fiddling around with the bindings on the catcher's mitt.

"How can you say that? You haven't even applied yet."

"A friend of my Dad's from the Bureau knows the admissions director. The District Director knows a couple of people on the Board of Trustees. If I can get my grades back up, that should do the trick. And I'm getting an ROTC scholarship. So after I sell the house..."He shrugged again. "We'll see".

Eddie was stunned. He'd barely started thinking about what he wanted to do with his life and had vague ideas about applying to approximately thirty different schools. But Jack had not only worked out where he wanted to go; he had a back door strategy for getting in, and a way to pay for it once he got there. And he'd also settled on what he'd be doing in five _years_, after he graduated from _college_. Eddie didn't even know what he'd be doing next month.

"We should go down," Jack added. "I have to thank your mother and I have to get over to the hospital."

"Isn't it kind of late for visiting? Its almost ten."

"They don't hassle me about that too much, now. They let me see her pretty much any time I want."

As Ed stood on the porch with his Dad, watching Jack drive off, his father struggled to light his pipe.

"Don't envy Jack his freedom," his father advised, his face illuminated in short bursts as he puffed on the pipe to get it going. "His mother's dying and he knows it. It won't be long now. The doctors say it could be a matter of days, no longer than a week or so at most. After that, he's on his own."

"He keeps doing what he's been doing, he won't have to worry about his freedom much longer." Ed leaned against a porch column, trying to look as non-chalant as he could manage.

His father looked him up and down for a moment before answering.

"Jack's growing up fast, probably too fast. That's not his fault, that's not anybody's fault, with the possible exception of the thief who murdered his father." Mr. Vallone paused to let that one sink in. "Don't blame him for feeling separated from the rest of you, you and Matt and Greg and Charlie. He's dealing with things that, hopefully, none of you will have to face for quite some time."

"Yeah, well, if even half the rumors are true, the next thing he's going to have to face will be a judge, and it won't be for a traffic ticket, either."

Eddie's father sucked on his pipe for a minute.

"Do you know something specific, something you've seen with your own eyes? Or is that comment based on the latest round of juicy high school gossip?"

Eddie shifted uncomfortably. The only thing he'd seen wasn't exactly illegal. It was much closer to being every teenaged boy's dream. It involved an empty house, a total lack of adult supervision, a pretty blonde who liked 'guys who surfed,' and parents who didn't seem to care too much if their daughter came home at night or not. He couldn't rat Jack out on that one.

"Well, no, but..."

"About what I thought," said Mr. Vallone. "Ed, if you really think Jack's in trouble, that he's doing things he shouldn't be doing, and you want me to try and do something about it, I can. But you have to come to me seriously and you have to tell me, specifically, what you've heard or, even better, what you know to be a fact.

"The way he is now," Paul Vallone continued "I can't talk to him about some vague generalities. Jack would end that conversation in about two seconds flat and he'd never talk to me honestly again. At least now I can approach him about some things, and sometimes he actually listens to me. But that's a slender thread and it has to be treated delicately.

"The worst thing would be if he reaches the conclusion that I'm going to let him down, just like every other adult in his life has let him down. If that happens then I don't know what's going to happen to him."

Ed was puzzled.

"Dad, his Mom hasn't let him down. She didn't ask to get sick, any more than his Dad asked to get shot. What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about how he feels, Ed, not what he knows. There were two people that he had every right to expect would take care of him until he was ready to be on his own. For whatever reason, they can't do that for him. And what that feels like, to Jack, is that they just up and left him."

Paul Vallone looked at his son and continued, speaking very gently.

"That's what Jack's so angry about, Edward. Only he can't get angry at his parents because he knows, with the logical part of his mind, that this situation is the last thing they wanted to have happen. There are a number of reasons why he won't let himself get angry at them. At least, he won't admit to himself that he's angry at them. But he still has to do something with all that anger.

"So he's sent it in your direction. He's cut you right out of his life: you, Ginny, and all his other friends as well. The most dangerous part is that he's directing a good deal of that anger at himself. A very young part of him, a part that's left over from even before he started school, is wondering if maybe he didn't do something to make all this happen; if it isn't somehow all his fault.

"He's not really angry at you, son. He's just full of anger about getting the short end of the stick. And I, for one, don't blame him."

They stood together for a while, just listening to the crickets and thinking.

"Did any of that make any sense to you?" Paul Vallone asked.

"Yes, but I have to think about it some more."

"Nothing wrong with thinking about things and reading about them before you express an opinion about whether they're true or not." Mr. Vallone said, "The world would be a lot better place if people bothered to engage their brains before they opened their mouths."

Ed smiled to himself. That was one of his father's favorite profound statements.

He liked talking to his father this way, like they were working together to make sense out of something that was complicated and important. It kind of made up for feeling shut out of things earlier. His Dad was pretty smart, underneath it all. He seemed to know what Eddie was wondering about or confused about, even before he got around to actually bringing it up. Right then it felt surprisingly good, that his Dad was standing next to him, ready to talk with him about anything that was on his mind. Or that they could just stand there together and listen to the night sounds.

"If you're interested," Mr. Vallone added, after they'd spent some minutes in a comfortable silence. "I've got a book or two that might make these things clearer."

"How do you know all this, Dad? I mean, you're a lawyer, you're not a doctor, or a shrink, or anything like that."

"Oh, I do some public defender work on the side, its pro bono. That means the firm doesn't get paid for it. Its like charity work. And a lot of the people I defend are kids, young people, who come from some pretty horrendous family situations. Families that make Jack's situation look like a walk in the park.

"To defend them effectively, I have to understand my clients, why they're acting the way they act. And reading about how kids grow up, and what happens to them when something goes wrong, helps me to do that.

"There are even moments when knowing about these things is actually useful when it comes to living in this house," he added, dryly.

"I'm just trying to make sure," he added, as he knocked the spent pipe ashes down into the shrubbery, "that Jack doesn't need my professional services in the near future."


	3. CHAPTER TWO St Peter's Hospital

CHAPTER TWO: ST. PETER'S HOSPITAL

Jack leaned over the bed and gently kissed his mother on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered open in response. She looked confused at first but then smiled when she realized who was there.

"Hi, Mom" he said, pulling the chair up closer, and taking her hand in his. "How are you feeling?"

"Better today, I think."

"Have you had anything to eat?"

"No, I'm not hungry. How about you?"

"I had dinner with the Vallones tonight. Mrs. Vallone made lasagna. She made me take about half of it home. It's enough to feed a family of four for the next three days." She always worried about whether he was eating anything more substantial than bologna sandwiches and cornflakes.

She smiled again, more broadly this time.

"The Vallones are good neighbors. I'm glad to see you put on a nice shirt before you went over there. How was Eddie?"

Jack put on his fake smile. "He's fine. He's working over at his uncle's insurance agency, just paper work, filing, says it's boring as heck but they're paying him $4.50 an hour."

Eddie, his alleged best friend, had barely spoken to him all through dinner. Then they'd argued when they went up to his room afterwards. He was glad he'd plowed into him. What a stupid, clueless jerk Eddie was. He was still a kid, even though he was older than Jack. Asked Jack why he'd quit baseball and cross country, and why, by the end of the year, had he practically quit school, too.

Jack had felt totally exasperated with him. Wasn't it all obvious? Couldn't that moron figure anything out for himself? How the hell was he supposed to work two jobs and then go running through the countryside, or play games after school? Eddie had never heard about a little fact of life called the phone bill, or the mortgage. He had no idea about how big the difference was between a survivors' check from the Bureau, and what doctors and hospitals were charging these days. That the health insurance paid eighty percent, and he was on the line for the rest of it.

"Maybe you should think about trying for something over there, for the fall."

"No, I'm better off at the garage, where I can learn something that might actually prove useful. And the A&P pays less but they've been letting me come in and restock after 9:00 p.m. So I think I'm pretty set for now." Not to mention the cash he'd been able to pick up by making deliveries for Jim.

She looked at him sadly for a moment.

"I'm sorry all this has landed on you, Jack. Your father and I never wanted, never imagined..."

"Don't worry about it, Mom. It's better than wasting my time just hanging out, surfing and chasing girls." The smile was real this time.

"Did you take those papers over to Mr. Vallone, so he could go over them?"

Jack looked down at her hand. It was even thinner than he'd remembered. The skin was loose, hanging in folds over her knuckles. How much longer? There wasn't too much left of her it could eat up.

"Jack, I know you don't want to think about..."

"I took them over there tonight. He said he'd look them over tomorrow or the next day." He said it brusquely, cutting her off. "He said that Dad's pension will stop but there'll be something from Social Security, at least until I turn 18, maybe longer, if I'm in school."

"What do you mean, 'if I'm in school'?"

Shit. He'd let the cat out of the bag on that one. She was still sharper than anybody else he'd ever met, at least about him.

"I'm thinking about going right into the Army." He looked away from her. "The thought of sitting in a classroom for six hours a day for the next four years makes me want to jump out of my skin. And if that's were I'm going anyway, why not get there sooner rather than later?"

"College isn't like that. You spend much less time in the classroom; you have much more freedom to plan your schedule. If you want to sleep in every morning, with a little creativity you can make sure you don't have a class before noon."

She looked at him quietly for a moment, watching him while he avoided meeting her eyes.

"This is not negotiable, Jack," she said as firmly as she could. "Is all the paperwork in for your scholarship?"

"Yes. I'm just waiting to hear," he said impatiently.

How many times had he answered this particular set of questions? Either her memory was going or she didn't really believe what he'd told her.

"I told you, the guidance counselor at school thought they'd be falling all over themselves to get me. So there's just the school application to take care of in September. Mr. Roberts said to give it to him once I've got it done and he'll take it from there."

"Dave Roberts was a good friend to your father," she said, leaning back into the pillows. "He'll come through on this one. The Bureau has a way of making things happen that they want to have happen."

She knew his grades had dropped through the floor over the last year. He would need all the help he could get, to get into UCLA now, the place she knew, with her teacher's sixth sense, that he belonged. With the ROTC scholarship, and the proceeds from selling the house, and anything left over from her life insurance policy, and working, they'd figured out he could swing it.

But he needed someone to intercede, to explain what had happened and why the grades didn't tell the whole story. Somebody had to hear and be made to understand that he was finally reacting to everything that was going on with her, and stretched thinner than any grown man should be stretched, let alone a sixteen or seventeen year-old boy. Let the Bureau do something for him, then. His father had died doing his job for them. Let Jack have this one thing in return.

She was sorry that she'd failed him, failed to find a replacement father for him. Though he was mild and at least outwardly obedient to her (his father's imprint showed clearly there), there was a streak of wildness in him, and a headstrong determination, that scared her. He was absolutely fearless. As a five year old he had climbed up to the top of the high dive and calmly jumped off without a moment's hesitation, before he even knew how to swim.

He'd stepped into the breadwinner's role as soon as it became apparent that the gap between the sum of the disability check and the survivors' check, on the one hand, and the total of the monthly bills, on the other, could not be bridged any other way. He had assumed all the responsibility of bringing the money in when she finally couldn't work anymore. He'd dropped the trappings of a normal, middle-class American teenager's life, all the self-centeredness, and the considerable attractions of the high school social scene, without a backward glance. At least, he hadn't displayed any regrets in that regard that she could discern.

That was another way he was like John, but this time the similarity between them was a source of concern. Maybe it got passed down in the genes. If it was a gene it had to sit on that weird male chromosome. Because, just like his father, any emotion Jack considered unworthy he wrapped up tightly in a very small box and promptly crushed. And now he would be totally on his own, with no father to teach him how to turn his basic pig headedness into an advantage instead of a trap. Or how to avoid crossing the line between being brave and being reckless. Nor would she have the chance to make him finally understand that there was no such thing as a "bad" emotion.

But, of the two, she felt he needed a father now more than he needed a mother. Except Jack wouldn't have either. He'd be totally on his own.

"I'm not thrilled about the Army, you know that," she continued after a pause. "But it's your choice. Just like a deal is a deal. But only after college, Jack. That was the agreement. No hassles on the Army, but you get college out of the way first. You'll be much better off going in as an officer."

She closed her eyes for a moment. The pain was getting ready to come back. She had to hold it off so she could make sure she got through to him on this. There was very little time left to tell him anything, to make sure that, if he had to be alone, at least he was on track, headed in the right direction.

He didn't say anything. She knew him, knew every inch of skin on his body, how he thought and what those silences meant.

"Jack, promise me you'll do this the way we agreed."

"Ok, I'll do it like we said."

She kept looking at him.

"Ok, ok, I promise".

"Good. We'll say no more about it, then." Another pause, before another topic that was painful for them both.

"Have you decided who you want named as your guardian?"

"I still don't understand what the heck I need a 'guardian' for," he answered angrily.

"Because you won't be 18. And you won't be able to sell the house, or even live there on your own, without one. And because you don't want some busy-body to say you need to go stay in a foster..."

"That's one thing that's not going to happen, believe me," he said with tight fury. "I've been on my own for the last three months, practically, and I'm not going to do that. I don't care what they try and make me do..." he stopped, suddenly aware of how much he'd raised his voice. She'd just turned white.

"Mom?" She squeezed his hand, too, as tight as ever.

"Mom, do you need something? Should I get a nurse?"

She didn't say anything, just closed her eyes and kept on squeezing.

What an idiot he was, to get her upset over this nonsense. He'd brought this on by arguing with her. Why did he have to argue with her at all? Just tell her what she needed to hear. He'd be doing exactly what he wanted to do, soon enough. As if he wasn't already. Just like he'd let her think Mr. Roberts was helping him with UCLA out of the goodness of his heart.

He started to stand, to go get somebody to give her a shot, or a pill, or something. But she wouldn't let go of his hand. He was surprised she had that much strength left. Most of the time she seemed so weak, so tired. But her grip on him tonight was like iron.

She came out of it sometime after he sat back down. She still didn't let go of his hand, though the pressure gradually slacked off.

"That was a doozie," she said, weak and breathless from the pain.

Jack put his head down, suddenly not able to look at her. Be a man. Don't even think about crying. Suck it in, you fairy. She doesn't need to see you cry. Do you see her crying?

"You have to decide," she repeated, after the several minutes it took for the pain to get back down to a level where she could talk. "You need to decide this right away. They've both agreed to do it. Mr. Vallone just needs to know so he can get the paperwork taken care of."

She tried to smile at him, but it ended up kind of crooked.

"If I thought you were still a child, do you think I'd let you decide this for yourself?" This time it came out gently, not so much weak as gentle.

Jack sat back in the chair, all the anger and resistance washed out of him.

"Let Mr.Vallone do it, then. I'll tell him tomorrow. I know him better than Mr. Roberts anyway."

"Good. Be sure you do that."

"Yes ma'am." It came out automatically.

He sounded so much like his father just then. The voice, the inflection, the tone, there were moments he sounded just like John. 'What did I just hear you say to your mother?' Was John's voice echoing around in Jack's head the way it was in hers? Could Jack even remember his father's voice well enough to know that was what was buzzing around in his head?

"Your Dad" she said, trying to smile at him, "would be so proud of you that the buttons would literally pop off his shirt".

Jack turned a little red, returning her smile with a slightly embarrassed one of his own.

"Are you sure you're not speaking figuratively?" he teased her.

"Nit-picker."

"Do you want to do the next chapter?" he asked, picking up a book that lay on her nightstand. He felt like he'd just run three miles. That was enough business for one night. He just wanted to do the one thing they could both still enjoy doing together.

"You need to get home and get some sleep. Don't you have to work in the morning?"

"Yes, but I'm not very tired. And it's a short chapter".

Besides, he said to himself, I have to do the pick-up around midnight. No reason to head back home before then, only to have to come right back and go over to North Hollywood. When he left the hospital in a half hour or so, if she got back to sleep, there was a bar he'd discovered about six blocks away where they weren't too concerned about how authentic his fake id looked. He could grab a beer and shoot some pool. And do a joint or two, if he felt like it. It wouldn't do to dip into what he was just supposed to deliver.

"Well, only if it's a short one," she answered, sounding really tired this time. "It helps me to drop off."

Jack opened the book to the last dog-eared page.

"Jem was twelve." Jack quoted. "He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: 'Reckon he's got a tapeworm?' Atticus said no, Jem was growing."

They didn't make it all the way through the chapter. Midway she started feeling bad again so he'd gotten the nurse. She gave his mother two of the pills but also got the doctor, the one who was there at night, to come take a look at her. He was a younger guy, maybe in his late twenties. When he was done he pulled Jack aside in the hallway outside her room.

"I want to let you know what's going to be happening in the next few days" the doctor started off. "We have to change your mother's pain medication. The pills we can give her won't really help her anymore. We've got to increase her morphine. She'll be on that pretty much the whole time from here on out." He stopped to give Jack a chance to absorb that, and then continued.

"What that means is, she won't be awake much anymore. It will be like she's sleeping. She'll wake up for short intervals, but then she'll drift out again. If she's lucky, that will be pretty much what she'll be like right through to the end. The thing is" he hesitated "she might not know you're here. She probably won't be able to talk much, or follow a conversation, because the times when she'll be awake, truly awake, will be pretty short."

Jack had no idea what he was supposed to say. He didn't even know what questions the doctor was waiting for him to ask.

"Do you mean I won't be able to read to her anymore?"

"You can read to her. She'll probably like hearing the sound of your voice. But if you're asking if the two of you can still have those discussions I've eavesdropped in on, about things like character development, and the balance of narrative to dialogue...no, Jack, she won't be able to talk about things like that anymore. She won't be awake enough and she won't have energy enough."

So she was gone already, that's what the doctor was telling him. She was breathing and her heart was going. And of course she could still feel the pain (why did that not surprise him?). But his mother was basically gone already.

He'd thought she was gone before, when they'd admitted her this last time, when he realized she'd never come back to the house. But he was wrong. She was only gone from the house, she wasn't really "gone". Even if she was in the hospital they could still talk to each other the way they always did. They could read books together and they could talk about them.

But now she was really gone. Because they couldn't even do that together anymore. All that was left was to just sit there, watching her and waiting for the other things to finally stop.

He realized that the doctor was waiting again for him to say something.

"Ok" he said.

The doctor wanted him to say something else. But he didn't have anything else to say.

"Do you have any questions for me, Jack?" he finally asked.

"No."

The doctor waited a little longer. Then he said "If you decide later on there's something you want to ask me about you can always call me." He handed Jack his number on a blank prescription form. "You may have to leave a message but the answering service will let me know you called and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Just remember" he smiled a little "there's no such thing as a stupid question."

"I have to leave now. I have to go to work," he blurted out.

Saying you had to leave because you had to go to work, he'd found, was like a solid-gold hall pass that never expired. Everybody understood that if you had to go to work, you had to leave right then and there, no questions asked. It could get you out of some really tight situations.

"Where are you working, this time of night?" the doctor asked, puzzled.

"I have to go up to the supermarket. I'm scheduled to re-stock tonight from midnight on," he lied. He had to get the hell out of this place.

"All right. Someone will call you at home if there's any real change in her condition."

"Thanks."

8


	4. CHAPTER THREE Delivery Boy Part 1

CHAPTER THREE: Delivery Boy

Part 1.

By the time he was heading over to do the pick up he was ok. The beer had helped some and the fat joint he'd smoked had helped some more. He felt calm and in control again. He wasn't high at all. It was more like he'd just gotten something out of his system, like throwing-up when you had the flu. That's what crying was like. You felt better afterwards, usually. You just had to stop fighting it and let it happen and get it over with.

But just like nobody wanted to watch somebody else puke, because it was disgusting, nobody wanted to see somebody else cry, either. If you had any consideration for your fellow man at all, let alone any pride in yourself or any self control, you took care of these things on your own. And then the beer and the joint washed away the taste.

He picked up his backpack and headed up the three flights of stairs to the apartment where Jim and the others were waiting for him. As usual the hallway smelled like a toilet and you could hear some guy yelling at his wife from two floors away and a baby was crying and the old lady who lived on the top floor (where else?) was trying to get her bag of laundry up the stairs. So he helped her and then knocked on Jim's door and after they figured out it was him they let him in.

Jim came out from the back room while Jack was demonstrating that his backpack was empty.

"This thing yours?" he asked, picking up a from the table. He expertly felt the weight of it in his hand and then sighted it towards the TV. "It still has the serial number on it. You'd better file that off." He turned it over and examined the underside. "It's got 'JB' on the handle. Is that you?" He looked at Jack through half closed but attentive eyes.

"No, it was a relative's. We just have the same initials."

One of the other three men laughed. The others smiled.

"You mean you pinched it from the old man's nightstand."

"Isn't he going to miss it?" Jim asked. His eyes were fixed on Jack.

"No. He left us. He left a lot of his things behind and Mom never got rid of them. So I figured, at least I could put this to good use." Jack was careful to keep his voice casual and easy and his face blank while he said this.

"C'mon in the back" Jim said, placing the gun on the table. "You get that back on your way out."

In the center of the room was a long table that had about twenty-five bags of grass neatly wrapped in cellophane. Twenty-five bags at five pounds a bag came to 125 pounds total. There were an equal number of smaller bags of white powder, probably coke, and they totaled about a hundred pounds. He knew those were coke because the smack was packaged in even smaller bags. On another table there were about 500 baggies of crack. Plus there were bottles of pills stored in boxes that were stacked up all along the wall. Jim was an all-purpose distributor who handled about $250,000 worth of drugs in a week. His inventory was worth a good million. His chosen place of business was a pigsty of an apartment in a building Jack assumed even the cockroaches were ashamed of.

He wondered where this guy really lived. What type of cars did _his_ kids drive? Did they have to use the same surf boards they'd used when they were ten years old, even if they were too short and battered and patched up and chipped? How about wet suits. Did they just go out and buy a new wet suit every time the old one got a tear or a snag? He'd like to have one, period. What about motorcycle parts? He was sure they didn't have a motorcycle gathering dust in the garage because there was no money to buy a part that cost $159, used. He smiled at himself. Now he was whining and feeling sorry for himself. He sounded just like Eddie, and all the rest of them. He needed to start paying attention again.

The three men in the front room, the ones whose job was to prevent anybody who wasn't wanted from reaching the back room, were watching a ballgame, drinking and playing cards, exactly what they'd been doing like every other time Jack picked up his deliveries. They had two .345s and an X and there was some kind of a shotgun or a semi-automatic attached to the underside of the card table with duct tape. Jim's question snapped his brain back from "Save" mode to the here and now.

"They said they wanted three bags of grass and two of the coke." Jack answered.

Jim grunted his assent, counted out Jack's money and started to put the order together.

"Here's yours. Same as always, you get the rest when you drop off the payment."

Jack picked up the money and counted it. Once he was done Jim would give him another seventy-five bucks. It wasn't much but he could count on it each week and it only took him two or three hours of pretty easy work to get it.

"You still interested in that other piece, the one I showed you?"

"Hell, yes. I'm walking around with eight thousand dollars worth of your stuff in a backpack with only a thirty-year old popgun for protection. Anybody who really wants to could just get in my face and tell me to hand it over. Of course I'm still interested."

Jim grinned. "For a school boy from a white-bread town you sure figured out this side of the world pretty fast. Tell you what. Make two more deliveries and it's yours."

Jack smiled back. "No thanks. I make your deliveries. You pay me. Then I buy the gun".

The man shrugged with an appreciative glint in his eyes. "Whatever. How long you plan on staying in this line of work?"

"Until something better comes along."

"You moved up pretty fast, moving up from turning it around yourself to moving product and money for me in just a couple of months. How'd you like to take the next step?"

"Which would be...?"

"This is the tail of the dog. I've got about fifty guys just like you moving stuff to about a hundred street dealers. You were smart to get away from that part of the business as fast as possible. Too much work, too much risk, for too little potential payback. The next rung up, you help me with the receiving end of it, with the pick-up from the guys who get it to me."

"What's it pay?"

"Three-fifty a shot. Instead of working every week, you show up maybe twice a month. Takes about six, seven hours each time. You have to be able to stay out overnight, though. We have to travel a little distance. Can you get that past the 'rents?"

Jack made his eyes and his face blank. "No problem. A friend can cover. I'll say I'm staying over at his house. I just need about a week or so, maybe two, to get finished with something else I've got going on. Fact is, somebody will have to cover for me next time and the week after."

Jim looked at him sharply. "I don't like making changes like this on the fly. Gets everybody out of synch, to have to deal with different people on short notice. What's the problem?"

"Family vacation." Jack said smoothly. "Gotta go to my aunt's, they make me go there every year." Then, seeing Jim's less than satisfied look, he added, "Listen, you employ people who live in places like Santa Monica, you have to expect this kind of thing. The Brady Bunch, and all that crap."

Jim chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Keep everybody happy. So nobody thinks to ask too many questions".

"That's the idea. So, I'll let you know about the other when I'm freed up, ok? And you won't see me for the next two weeks."

"Fine. You want a hit?" he asked, offering Jack a joint. "Its on the house."

Jack looked up from putting the packages in his backpack.

"No, thanks. I've got a buzz on right now anyway. I don't want to get pulled over for driving funny."

Jim looked at him pointedly. "You want to stay away from the hard stuff, Jack. You're too smart for that, its sucker bait. Leave it for the ass holes who are too stupid to figure things out the way you can, like the three morons sitting out in the front room. Do a couple of joints, or run a line every now and then. Hell, get shit-faced on beer every weekend if you want. But stay away from the other. I mean it. You got too much raw talent. Use your head."

Jack grinned as he moved towards the door. "Thanks sincerely for the career counseling."

4


	5. CHAPTER THREE Delivery Boy Part 2

CHAPTER THREE Delivery Boy

Part 2.

He drove around town for close to two hours, trying every place he could think of to find Jack. The kids who were drinking behind the high school practically laughed in his face. Here was straight arrow Vallone in the market for smoke, but he had no idea about how to go about getting some. They finally told him to try over by the highway garage.

It turned out that the highway garage was deserted, with the exception of one startled couple making out in the relatively luxurious back seat of a Buick. So he headed over to the diner to see if anyone there had seen Jack.

When he pulled up he recognized the phalanx of SUVs that indicated that the soccer team was holding court, but he went in anyway. There had never been any friendship between Jack and this crew, just mutual toleration. Over junior year what had been a prickly accommodation deteriorated into mutual loathing. When Jack had something going for him...accomplishments in two sports, a more than decent looking girlfriend who was popular herself, a way of answering questions in trig that was downright funny, and helped to pass the time...then they left him alone. This was fine with Jack because, like Eddie, he thought they were jerks.

But over the last year, as Jack's social status slipped, and then fell off the radar screen, they sensed red meat, and he became an irresistible target. This was despite the fact that they were some of his best customers. What changed was that Jack had become one of the hired help, like the Mexican housemaid who made up their beds or the pool guy. Only things never went too far. They all knew that Jack had come close to dismembering two guys at a football game. They'd made the mistake of thinking Ginny was by herself and had pressed their attentions after she'd told them to take a hike.

It turned out to be a waste of time to ask the people hanging out in the diner anything. They just wanted to know if Eddie would also pick some up for them and then bring it back, if they gave him a tip. But on his way out he ran into Pasternak, another one of the baseball players, who said Jack could sometimes be found behind the strip mall, in back of the dry cleaners.

"What are you bothering with him for?" Gary asked. They were all disgusted with "no-show Bauer", who had blown the best chance any of them would ever have of getting anywhere in the State high school baseball tournament. Some of the guys, Pasternak included, had been counting on a good showing there to get the scouts interested. "Eddie, you're not..."

He was looking at Eddie with more concern than disgust. Gary was all right. He'd just thought that a baseball scholarship would be his ticket into college. Now he didn't have one.

"No, it's not like that. I just need to find him."

"Give it up, Eddie. The guy's gone. He's moved on to harder stuff, is what I hear. He's even got guys working for him now, he doesn't do much retail anymore. I know you were friends but..."

"Thanks for the lead, Gary."

But that didn't pan out either. He tried the abandoned dairy farm, which would soon be turned into another housing development, and over towards the water treatment plant, and every other place he could think of. But there was no sign of Jack, and no one else that he ran into had seen him.

Discouraged and tired, he was about to give up and head back home when he thought of one last place. There was a small park down by the river with a boat launch that was pretty isolated. To reach it you had to go down a winding, gravel road. There were no houses nearby with insomniac old ladies who would be interested in reporting suspicious activity. Eddie decided to give it a shot and then call it a night.

He parked his car in the moon-shadow cast by the picnic pavilion. It was light enough to see that and the building that contained the public restrooms, but that was about it unless you moved down towards the water, so that was the direction he headed in. There was no sign of Jack's car and he had finally run out of options. He couldn't think of a single other place to look, and there was no guarantee that Jack hadn't circled back to one of the places he'd already checked out. They could go around and around in circles like this all night long, and already it was a little after one.

As he got closer to the water he emerged from the shadows into moonlight. After taking a few more steps he heard an unmistakable metallic "click" that made him stop dead, even before he was told to. He even raised his hands before he was told to. He was scared. Maybe this guy wasn't Jack, and he'd stumbled into something that wasn't even close to being any of his business.

"Who the fuck are you?" said a voice from behind him. Someone emerged from the bushes on his left.

"Jack, its me, Eddie."

"Turn around."

He turned so they faced each other. Jack looked absolutely serious. Eddie had no doubt the gun was loaded. He watched as Jack hesitated, for just a second, and then lowered it, eventually tucking it behind, into the waistband of his jeans. Eddie had to stop himself from reminding Jack to put the safety on. Then his mind cleared from the initial shock of seeing Jack calmly hold a loaded gun on him. And he was furious.

"Eddie, what in hell are you doing here?" Jack asked, equally angry.

"I might ask you the same question."

He wanted to ask Jack what were they doing here, like this. He wanted to reach out and shake him so they could both wake up before it was too late. This was like acting out a story in a comic book instead of being who and what they both really were.

"You stupid fuck, you're gonna get us both killed."

"What's in the backpack, Jack?"

"None of your damn business. Now get the fuck out of here before its too late."

"I can't believe this. Are you out of your mind? Do you _want_ to go to jail?"

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere I don't want to. But you're leaving. Right now."

"You could kill somebody with that thing, Jack. Don't you understand that? You're Jack Bauer, not some gang-banger from South Central LA. What are you doing pointing a gun at anybody? What are you doing pointing a gun at me? Doesn't any of this seem a little strange to you?"

"Eddie, I got over that a long time ago."

Jack was angry but he was also worried. This was the last thing, the very last thing, that he had expected. Now, on top of everything else he had to worry about tonight, he had to get Eddie out of here. The narrow window he had to do that in was closing rapidly. Yet Vallone wanted to stand there and have a debate about it. Why, of all nights, did Eddie have to pick tonight to try and rescue him? His timing was perfect; perfectly bad. Why did he have to try and push himself in where he wasn't wanted?

"Eddie," he said, lowering the tone of his voice and changing tactics, "Please, just leave. I don't have time to listen to one of your sermons right now. I might be risking jail, but you're risking getting us both killed. Now just go."

But, for once in his life, Eddie wasn't following instructions.

"I'm not leaving, Jack."

Jack dragged his hands through his hair in frustration. He was boiling over with frustration, almost dancing on his toes with it.

"Eddie, for God's sake, get outta here!" He didn't know how to sound any more serious or emphatic. "I don't want you around," he said slowly and angrily. "I don't even like you anymore. We're not friends. You are nothing to me. Now just _leave_."

"Make me."

Vallone was totally unprepared when Jack's fist connected with his jaw. He went down hard. Jack loomed up over him.

"You stupid fag." His voice dripped with contempt. "Look at you, laid out on the ground like a girl, after one sucker punch. You dumb prick, you have no idea what you walked into here, or what you're talking about. You think I'm stupid? I know exactly what I'm doing. I haven't got time to explain things to you, or to get your permission to do what I have to do."

Eddie stood up. He was wobbling, but he stood up.

"If the money was that tight, why didn't you tell me?" he asked, rubbing his throbbing jaw. "We could have gone to my Dad. We could have figured something out. Why did you think you had to do this?"

"You don't get it, do you?" Jack said, totally incredulous that Vallone still didn't have a clue. Wasn't he speaking English?

"I'm not a kid anymore, Eddie. I can't go hat in hand to your father, and ask him for help. Men don't do that. They either take care of their families, or they aren't worth a warm bucket of spit."

"Your father would be _so_ happy to hear you say that, and to see how you're doing it."

Jack launched himself, hitting Eddie as hard and as viscously as he could, repeatedly landing blows in his face, in his stomach, any place his fists could connect with some part of Eddie's body. Vallone was bigger, and in fair shape himself. But he didn't have the seething anger that was erupting out of Jack. All the rage he had swallowed for the last year, and, perhaps, for even longer than that, was suddenly there, available to him, and he was using it to pound Eddie's face in.

"What kind of shit is this?" a voice said. Jack felt someone grab his arms and he was pulled to his feet.

He looked around, yelling "Let me go," and yanked his arms free.

Vinnie was the one who had pulled him off Eddie. Pittz was standing over Eddie, pointing a gun at his head, smiling faintly. Eddie had managed to turn over on his stomach, grabbing his midsection in pain as he struggled to rise to his knees.

"Who is this guy?"

"He's just a friend of mine. He's all right."

"A friend? Could have fooled me. Looked to me like you were trying to kill him."

"We had an argument. It's got nothing to do with you. I'll get your stuff."

He started to walk back, to pick up his backpack, when he heard that 'click' again, the sound of a gun being cocked. Now it was his turn to stop dead in his tracks.

"You've got one minute to explain what was goin' on here."

Jack turned around slowly. Making his shoulders relax, making sure his hands were clearly visible he tried to look smaller. Whatever you do, he said to himself, don't look threatening. His father's service revolver felt cold up against his back. He could feel its coldness even through his shirt. But Vinnie had the drop on him, and Pittz was still holding his piece about three feet from Eddie's head. He wasn't anywhere near fast enough to pull it out and fire and then turn and take care of that second gun.

Jack smiled.

"Man, I'm telling you, its nothing. He shanked my girlfriend. Got more off of her in one night than I've gotten in the last week. She has to tell me about it, of course. I can't let that go. Even if she is basically a slut."

He called over to Eddie, who was now on his knees.

"I mean, couldn't you have just waited until I was done with the bitch? Couldn't you have just waited a week or so?"

Vinnie looked at Eddie.

"What's your side of this?"

Eddie wiped some of the blood from his nose, but didn't say anything.

"I can't hear you," said Vinnie, starting to get angry again.

"If she's a slut," Eddie said finally, "then what the fuck do you care who shanks her?"

"Good point," said Vinnie. He uncocked his gun, motioned to Pittz to do the same, and looked at Jack.

"Where's my stuff?"

Jack silently picked up the backpack by the shoulder straps and handed it to Vinnie, who quickly opened it.

"Two grass, one coke, just like you wanted."

Vinnie grunted his agreement, tossing the packages one by one to Pittz, who placed them in a backpack of his own.

This was the bad part, Jack thought to himself. They had what they wanted. The only thing preventing them from shooting both of them right then and there was the assurance that Jim would kill them in a very unpleasant way if they did. The street dealers had to know that the delivery boys were protected, or else no body would do deliveries anymore, and Jim would end up riding around all day and all night dropping off this shit himself.

"Here's the money." He gave Jack a brown paper bag secured with rubber bands.

Eddie watched in dazed wonderment while Jack counted through more cash money than he'd ever seen in his life.

"Five thou, its all here," Jack said finally, putting it away and slipping the bag over his shoulder. "Next time, there'll be somebody different. Jim's cool about it."

"Next time, keep your personal shit out of my business. You got a bone to pick with somebody, do it on your own time, not when you're doing business with me. You got that, Jack?"

"Yeah, you're right, I know. It won't happen again."

"See to it, then. And you," he said, turning to Eddie, who hadn't made it past his knees yet. "Don't mess with another man's bitch, no matter how easy she is. Jack's right. Show some respect, and just wait your turn."

For some reason both he and Pittz thought that was very funny.

"Christ, in addition to everything else, I have to teach these punks how to act," he said, as they finally sauntered off.

Jack waited until he couldn't hear their car anymore.

"Do you have any idea, any conception, of how lucky we just were?" he asked through clenched teeth. "If he had been drunk, or high, or just in a foul mood, we'd both have a bullet in the back of the brain right now."

"Why would he do that?" asked Eddie, bewildered. Jack finally helped him to his feet.

"Because he's a loon. Because we annoyed him. But, mostly, because I let my shit interfere with his business. He has a point. These guys never let anything, ever, interfere with business."

He stopped to take a good look at Eddie.

"You look awful," Jack observed. There was a bad cut above his left eye, which was quickly turning blue. His lip was split. There were other, less serious cuts on his face. The blood from his nose was caked and drying down one side of his chin.

"You should know. You did it."

"Get cleaned up as best you can," Jack said. "Then go home, Eddie. Just tell your folks you got jumped and see if you can get them calmed down enough to leave it at that, so they don't try and call out the National Guard."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not done yet. I've got to make some other stops, and then I have to drop the money off. Then I'm done."

"Jack, listen to me."

"Not now, please, just spare me." He was so tired of this. "Look, you satisfied your curiosity, ok? You took a little walk on the wild side. Now you've got something to tell your grandkids about.

"I do this for the money, Eddie, that's all. When I don't need the money, I won't do it anymore. That's about where things stand. I'm sorry if that shakes you up, or you can't deal with it. But that's where I am."

He turned and started walking away, back towards the shadows he had so quietly emerged from.

"The hospital called."

Jack stopped moving.

"They couldn't reach you at home," Eddie continued nervously, "so they called the second number, the number at our house. Your Mom gave it to them in case they needed to reach you and you weren't home. I guess she figured if you weren't home, or working, you'd probably be with me."

Jack turned around. Eddie wondered how Jack could hold himself perfectly still, but still turn around.

Eddie licked his lips,

"They said you'd better get over there."

Jack didn't say anything for a moment.

"I was just there, not four hours ago," he said at last.

"They told Mom it could be anytime, or it could be three days from now. She just started to go downhill fast." He paused again. "I'm sorry, Jack."

Jack looked off to the side for a moment, then back at Eddie.

"Tell them you couldn't find me. You got jumped and you couldn't find me. When I get done, then I'll go over there."

"Jack, you're kidding."

"Eddie, I've got five thousand dollars of somebody else's money here. I've got other people waiting for me to show up. You think I can just stop off somewhere, that they won't start looking for me if I don't show up when they expect to see me?"

"You can't not go over there, Jack."

"She's out of it, Eddie," he said, feeling very, very old. "She isn't going to be awake. She might as well be dead already, for all she'll know I'm there."

"You don't know that, Jack. You don't know that for sure. You've got to go see her, "Eddie said quietly.

Jack didn't speak for a few moments. When he did speak, his voice was very soft.

"I don't want to, Eddie."

"I know that. But you've got to go anyway. I'll go with you, Jack. It'll be ok."

When Jack didn't speak again, Eddie added "We'll go after you get done, ok?"

Eddie suddenly sensed what the real danger was here. Jack could finish what he was obviously determined to do, and just keep moving. He'd concluded that his mother was already dead or, at least, would never know whether he was there or not. He could just get in that car, point it in one direction or another, start driving, and never look back. There was nothing holding him here. He'd made sure of that over the last year. And if he left that way, Eddie was sure he would never see Jack again.

"No way I'm letting you go anywhere else by yourself tonight anyway, Jack," he said simply. "You can just put that right out of your head."

He understood now why he had been allowed to find Jack. This was what he was supposed to do. Tonight it was his job to hang onto Jack, to keep him from falling away.

"And I explain your presence to these people exactly how?"

Eddie thought for a moment.

"We'll take my car. Yours broke down; I came and got you so you could get there. They get their money, they won't care, especially if I stay in the car."

Jack fidgeted.

"Look, for the last time, you need to know what you're getting yourself into here.

"Say we take your car. If we get pulled over, they come up with some excuse to take a look in the backpack. To do that they're supposed to have something called "probable cause", but that's mostly b.s., they lie about that all the time. There's no way anybody believes you didn't know what was in there. It's not just grass, Eddie. I've got some coke, too. I've got much more than what we'd have if it were just for us. That means it's assumed we were going to sell it. That makes it 'possession with intent to sell', which is much worse. And on top of that, there's the little matter of the gun I'm carrying.

"This could screw up your whole future, Eddie. It could keep you from doing everything you ever wanted to do with your life.

"You can still walk away from this. That's what you should do. I wouldn't blame you if you did. This isn't your thing, its mine. And like you just saw, you could get hurt. This is dangerous."

"You keep saying that. I get the point. Let's just get this over with."

He started to walk past Jack.

"Eddie, about what I said, I didn't mean..."

"Shut up Jack, and get in the car."

10


End file.
